Richard Stallman — July 15th @ Uni Frankfurt Campus Westend
Who is Richard Stallman?
[Richard Matthew Stallman/rms/RMS] is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in a manner such that its users receive the freedoms to use, study, distribute, and modify that software. Software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software. Stallman launched the GNU Project, founded the Free Software Foundation, developed the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and wrote the GNU General Public License. [wikipedia/Richard_Stallman]
Free software means the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
What will he be talking about?
In his Talk Are We Facing Surveillance Like in China? Stallman will be talking about the absolute limit on general surveillance in a democracy, and will suggest ways to design systems not to collect dossiers on all citizens.
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.
Why the Talk matters?
Governments have the same access to digital technology as surveillance companies such as facebook or commercial data brokers such as Cambridge Analytica. Their ability making it next to impossible to i.e. talk with a reporter unmonitored puts democracy and human rights in danger, as ffsci makes the claim illustrated by the totalitarian regime of China today.
On why “Free” rather than “Open”
The terms “free software” and “open source” stand for almost the same range of programs. However, they say deeply different things about those programs, based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for freedom for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice. By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage and does not campaign for principles. This is why we do not agree with open source, and do not use that term. [source]
Save the Date:
Monday, Juli 15th 2019, 19:30
Goethe University Frankfurt
Campus Westend
Casino-Gebäude, Festsaal
You will find more info here!
The event is open to anyone, the entry is free, as in “free beer”… but I’m not sure there will be free beer!